John Brahm
John Brahm (August 17, 1893 – October 13, 1982) was a film and television director possibly best known today for directing a dozen of the original Twilight Zone episodes including the now classic "Time Enough at Last". His films include The Undying Monster (1942), The Lodger (1944), Hangover Square (1945), the film noir The Locket (1946) with Laraine Day, Robert Mitchum, and Brian Aherne, and the Secret Sharer segment of Face to Face. He also directed the 3D horror film The Mad Magician 1954 with Vincent Price and Mary Murphy.
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Early life [edit]
Brahm was born Hans Brahm in Hamburg, Germany. He was the son of German actor Ludwig Brahm and the nephew of European theatrical impresario Otto Brahm.[1]
Career [edit]
He started his career in the theatre as an actor. After World War I he shuttled among Vienna, Berlin and Paris, eventually becoming a director, and was appointed resident director for acting troupes at the Deutsches Theater and the Lessing Theater, both in Berlin.[1]
With the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany, Brahm left the country, first moving to England where he directed films for a while, after working as a movie production supervisor. He got a chance to direct his first film, a remake of D.W. Griffith's 1919 film by the same name as Broken Blossoms in 1936. He moved to the US the next year. He began his Hollywood career at Columbia Pictures and eventually moved to 20th Century-Fox. He directed the ill-fated Let Us Live, the true story of two men wrongly convicted of murder who were almost executed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Authorities there were embarrassed by the incident and put pressure on the studio to cancel the film. The studio made the film nonetheless, but quietly, with a small budget.
In his book, The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929–1968, American film historian and critic Andrew Sarris states that Brahm "hit his stride" in the 1930s with "mood-drenched melodramas", suggesting that Brahm went into artistic decline after this period. Nevertheless, Sarris further notes that Brahm did not lack work, as he made "approximately 150 TV films"[2] during the 1950s and 1960s, directing numerous episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Brahm's last full-length film was Hot Rods to Hell.[3]
Personal life [edit]
He married his first wife Hanna also an actress, who ran off with another actor leaving him seriously depressed. He married Teutonic stage and film actress Dolly Haas.,[1] who married Al Hirschfeld, the caricaturist after their divorce. In the 1950s he met and married Anna with whom he had two children.
Selected filmography [edit]
- Broken Blossoms (1936)
- Counsel for Crime (1937)
- Penitentiary (1938)
- Girls' School (1938)
- Let Us Live (1939)
- Rio (1939)
- Escape to Glory (1940)
- Wild Geese Calling (1941)
- The Undying Monster (1942)
- Tonight We Raid Calais (1943)
- Bomber's Moon (1943)
- Wintertime (1943)
- The Lodger (1944)
- Guest in the House (1944)
- Hangover Square (1945)
- Three Little Girls in Blue (1946)
- The Locket (1946)
- The Brasher Doubloon (1947)
- Singapore (1947)
- Siren of Atlantis (1949)
- A Star Shall Rise (1952)
- The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima (1952)
- The Thief of Venice (Italian: Il Ladro di Venezia) (1950)
- Face to Face (1952)
- The Diamond Queen (1953)
- The Mad Magician (1954)
- Hot Rods to Hell (1967)
References [edit]
- ^ a b c John Brahm at AllRovi
- ^ Sarris, Andrew (1968). The American cinema; directors and directions, 1929–1968. New York: Da Capo Press. p. 253. ISBN 978-0-306-80728-2.
- ^ Mank, Gregory William (2001). Hollywood Cauldron: Thirteen Horror Films From the Genre's Golden Age. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co Inc Pub. p. 350. ISBN 978-0-7864-1112-2.
External links [edit]
- John Brahm at the Internet Movie Database
- New York Times site on John Brahm and his films
- A tribute to John Brahm created by his daughter Sumishta Brahm
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